Author's Note: Mostly I'm throwing this in here so that I have a chance to say thank you to the incredible people who helped me get up the nerve to go from avid reader to poster on this site. To TEP my first Beta-Reader, I proffer much love for all the initial advice and for humoring one very nervous little writer-to-be. Also I am tossing out a very grateful nod to Tweekers and Shadow-of-Sins who have admirably taken up the onerous mantle of sorting through the sheer bulk of my initial chapters. Lastly I'm offering a thank you to any of you who are taking the time out of your day to give my overly zealous ramblings a glance. I can only hope this will be as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to write.

Warnings: Violence, Mild-Strong language at times, character death and attempted suicide tie into this plot in very late chapters. I will not ruin the suspense more than that. Beyond the pairings stated in the summary, expect a mix of Het/Slash so if gayness or straightness offends you I suggest we part ways amicably here rather than share in this story of mine. If both offend you…well you must be awfully dull on a date you have my sympathies. Couples will come as they will, and I'll try to keep it a surprise though I can guarantee that Kenny/Butters will rear its adorable head in later chapters.

Disclaimer: I do not own South Park or any of its charismatic characters; they belong to Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Likewise many names I have borrowed from Christianity, Hebrew Lore, and Greek Mythology. Obviously I cannot claim ownership of any of that either.

Mourning the Fallen

Wail when Crowns lay coldly,

And tears soak noble brows.

Praise fallen Church Princes

Now free from earthly vows.

Remember the crumbling towers,

Regret the unsaddled steeds.

For victory they have fallen

So we sing of their deeds.

But not all valor is treasured

When tallying the costs.

So I beg Kings to measure

What is oft carelessly lost.

For who stood to front,

And now in earth sleeps.

Your victory is lessened,

When for Pawns no one weeps

WPW Prologue: A Tale of Two Cities, and the Quiet Mountain Town

It was the best of times… It was the worst of… I suppose I don't have to tell you how that particular beginning goes. Not that it really fits our story perfectly; it certainly wasn't the best of times at all, not even close. It was point in fact as close as things had ever gotten to the worst of times, as close it could get since the last time the world had nearly ended. To understand how truly bad things were though; I should set the stage for you, by taking you to that place and time of clarity where one could first see the tremulous condition the world lay in. A place where you can grasp for yourself the countless heaps of what ifs, and dangerous maybes that conspired to hold the world at the very edge of the yawning pit of chaos. Speaking of pits of chaos I should start with the state of things, in the Abyss, not the figurative one, but the literal one spoken of in Dante's cherished work.

In the halls of the Inferno, rage and dissent were frothing in a dangerous and fevered mix. This range of emotion was not that necessary castigation of sinners, nor was it the common pulse of hate and negativity that kept the heart of Hell pumping. This was a more determined beat; a thundering of the drums of war, a conflict looming above the heads of the damned souls contained within. This was a war of the keepers and the beasts, the generals and soldiers, the Fallen and the demons. This was a self destructive wave of madness, though if you were to ask any member of the heavenly Host, they'd tell you that such a state was rather normal in the purposeless evil of the place.

Those of the Fallen Host would be a better source of information, having walked and ruled in this dark realm since their fall from Heaven's graces. Those outcasts knew better the difference between the normal discontent of their hellish home in exile, and the new sharp, stabbing fury that was rising against them. The flames glowing now weren't the same mindless blazes of prior eons, but a new insanity, and now the ash and smoke that blanketed the land rose from fires of revolution. The voices of the Demon Princes were slowly unifying, crying out for a return to the old ways, the ways before too bright Morning Star had come crashing into the Abyss, to seize their domain. Lucifer, prideful and arrogant, had for too long polluted their domain of chaos with his Order, and Rules, and Circles. Demons yearned for a time when human souls were the meat and drink of their dark appetites, an endless feast of pain and agony, not the toys and playthings of disgruntled angels.

For several millennia the Fallen Host of Lucifer had ruled over the land, promising to give the demons the one thing they lacked in their chaotic nature, a direction, a goal, unity. For a time they had satisfied this promise, Lucifer and his Fallen, bringing their inherent nature of absolutes and wills to the twisted expanse. Yet the very air of Hell was corrosive to all things constant, and the powers the Fallen now wielded in place of their once divine skills were rooted in corruption, disunity, and disarray. It was enough to try even the most determined of minds…and frankly, Satan just wasn't that determined anymore. Truth be told, he'd been living among the chaotic too long, reacting in the moment, and not to the Plan as he had when he first stormed down, a vengeful and spiteful boy, determined to prove his Creator wrong. Now the purpose was gone, and he was merely a willful child playing godling over his horde of human souls, losing lost touch with the matters above, and around him.

Without his constant assistance to shore up the Fallen, the place had quite literally gone to itself in a hand-basket. The failed assaults first on Earth and then on Heaven, had made matters worse by disillusioning the demons. Even more disastrous the battles alienated Satan from his Fallen, who had refused to take part in either invasion, as long as a Satan allowed mortal lovers to lead. The strength of an angel, in righteous devotion or fallen from grace, is centered in morale, duty, and purpose. The barrier of understanding between leader and Host dulled the morale of both, and the strength of Hell's rulers dwindled in their weakened resolve. In the malaise that spread like a plague through their ranks many of them began emulating their leader, getting caught up in all too "human" concerns and playthings, others simply began to more heavily feel the erosion of chaos on their rigid minds.

Then worse befell the beleaguered realm, the river of souls dried up. There was a time when all but a fraction of the Christian Faith had poured through the Obsidian Gate, each damned soul feeling the weight of the phrase "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate" etched in the hard stone above. "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," whether or not they could read the ancient Latin words, the crushing darkness ahead, and stench of decay pouring out on scorching winds, was a more effective tool for crushing their spirits than any archaic warning. And that stream of despair, that endless spring of pitiless crushing dismay, had been enough to sate the hunger of the soldiers of Hell, leaving the human souls themselves to pass downward through the circles, to the startlingly banal place laid out as home for them.

Rather than Dante's fields of misery and suffering, they were greeted with crowded slums under the ash and ember sky of the great city, Dis. A well of ennui and boredom it might be, but a city nonetheless, a bastion of civilization for Fallen and damned souls alike. Waiting for them there was a strange mix of Luau Fridays, crazed dictators, officious overseers, pompous greeters, and bored guides. It was a stagnant and petty place, a reflection of its diminished Dark Lord. Of course the design was deliberate, for it provided a steady stream of power for Satan and his host, whether the devotion was granted willingly or not. Those who lived within, dim souls murky and weak as they were, counted as worshippers of a sort, and in eking out their banal existence, they provided the currency of their beings to their host's spiritual resources. Yet this smooth balance had ended when God had cast open the Pearly Gates, removing the Mormon restriction, allowing the bulk of human souls to shift heavenward nearly overnight.

Reaction to change comes only gradually to angels, and the Fallen were slow to grasp the affect the shift would have on their lives. It was the demons who reacted first, rumbles of outrage rising from the Hordes who felt most keenly the pinch of loss when the number of despairing souls dwindled. With noses made sensitive by growling bellies, and eyes sharpened with hunger, the Horde turned toward Dis, the Lower City, the bastion of the Fallen, and more importantly the hordes of delectable human sinners housed within. What started as longing mutters, turned into drawn out pleading, then in the face of unyielding resistance, angry roars of demand. Soon the Fallen found themselves trapped within their own stone city walls, cut off from higher realms by the vast sea of the Hordes once at their command. For the first time since the coming of Lucifer, Hell was raging inward, oblivious to the world outside. The world outside was far less oblivious to the troubles of Hell. Beings of all walks and motives and faiths watched with trepidation fearing the unpredictable outcomes that might arise from this madness. The Fallen were becoming desperate, and last time their hands had been forced, a third of angelkind had violently severed their connection to the Divine, and all of Creation had trembled as leaves in the wake of that storm of wings and blades.

Worse than the desperate Fallen and rumbling of demons, was a silence from the Shining City of Heaven itself. For nearly ten years, God had not spoken, absenting himself from the day to day matters of Heaven. For the first time since their creation, the Cherubim and Seraphim faltered in their unending songs of Praise. Golden voiced Gabriel sat forlorn at the feet of the grim faced Thrones, unwilling to speak even a word of command to his Hosts for fear of missing the first utterance of Divine breath that would mark the return of the Creator. The very absence of sound was as unnerving as the steady roar of dissent from Hell. The one who had bound the darkness to the Abyss in his first act of Creation was silent, and those who had most recently ruled the dark things, were now all but trapped in the farthest reaches of that forsaken domain. A deeper terror was settling in across the worlds, a fear of the wildness of the demons that might break free after being so long contained or controlled. In the Silence of God and the Highest Choir, the rumbles of Hell had reached all the way into the Shining City and the proudest of Avenging Angels, felt the tremor of unease when that bass chord of discontent rang out, souring notes on golden harps and trumpets alike. Without Gabriel to aide them, the other three Arch-Angels struggled to stem the chaos and confusion in a city unused to running itself. Throughout the City, angels and the swelling crowd of human souls alike felt the unease of the leaders of the Host, and everywhere pale perfrect hands clenched the air near their belts subconsciously, reaching for weapons that were as of yet still safely stowed away.

Below the halls of Heaven, those beings not belonging to either realm remembered the days of the first Hell, the dark days of Gehenna, when demons roamed free and wild. Those beings waited with trepidation for signs of what was to come. Meanwhile all around them in that middle ground, on the spinning sphere of earth and water, men and women carried on living and dying, loving and hating, waking and sleeping, ignorant to the ripples of cosmic disturbance that might soon crest in a wave to wash their mundane cares aside.

Yet not all the men on the earthen realm were blissfully ignorant, and somewhere in that place of connections, at the most recent crossroad of Heaven and Hell, a simple man paced a sparsely furnished room. In his mind he felt the far off chaos, the dissonance that sounded out clearly in both cities. For years he had anticipated this moment with dread and now perched at the very precipice of great and dark times, he found himself unwilling to commit to a solution. His hand was figuratively hovering over a shivering genie's lamp. He was fearfully aware that there'd be no putting this djinn back in its bottle once unleashed.

With a sudden start, his thoughts were scattered as he stumbled, sandaled feet skipping over a solitary pebble, a tiny obstacle that somehow his steps had missed in each of the countless prior rotations around the room this evening. Reaching down, he picked up the tiny rock, mind still returning to the merits and risks of the actions he debated. Whether it was the cessation of pacing, or the weight of the round lump in his hands, he wasn't sure, but at last his mind settled on a course of action. With a glance down at his hand, he spared a last thought that perhaps this might be the very stone that would start the avalanche that would carry them all over that edge into the abyss beyond. Then with a desire to waste no more time on inaction and regrets, he opened the door of his room to the outside air, and whispered into the wind…

And somewhere in the aether far above the earth, a single angelic being shifted in his isolated perch on the Pearly Gates, disturbed from his tedious and increasingly gloomy inward thoughts, to turn his head into those same winds. Playful gusts pulled golden curls away from eyes as brown as the loam of the deepest forest. Startlingly dark the eyes were, shocking for their strangeness on an Angel's face, a distinction that marked him and his brothers as outcast among the rest of their silvery-eyed kin. The damning eyes squinted in the effort to seek that hint of sound he'd just heard, so out of place and urgent, compared to the roar of wind against golden parapets and the dull throb of demonic discontent. About to give up, he heard it again, a single word, "Gregory," his name, carried across the miles both real and celestial, between the mortal world and the gates of Heaven. Only a few voices could carry that far, and only one would use just his name to call him. Without a thought to his former concerns, or the displeasure that had consumed his mind, he stretched silver wings to azure sky. Arched above him, his feathers caught the ever present light of the Eternal City, and glinted with the proper argent shade of all angel wings, in chromatic defiance of the implied impurity of the chestnut eyes. With a flex of the muscles on his back, the wings hungrily grasped at the air, and thrust great wingfuls of sky downward, lifting his body off the Gates. As he began his descent alone, his ears listened eagerly for the clarion thread of his name that beckoned him ever downward, towards the oblivious earth.

Darkness lay thick over the Colorado Mountains, the air as heavy with clouds as the ground was with snow. To the being caught betwixt earth and sky it was hard to discern up from down, with those few stars peaking through cloudy gaps, a mirror to the scattered lights glowing under snowfall's blanket. Well it would have been hard if gravity had not been determinedly reminding him that he was no longer in Heaven, but the solid realm of earth. Relentlessly the force tugged down against the beat of wings unused to such exertions. The journey had been a long one, and the sight of the town below was a welcome vision to the weary Gregory. For a moment he hovered, wings straining to maintain his position against wind and weight. Widened dark orbs gazed down at the patchwork of light and shadow, a foreign map to eyes accustomed to the unwavering light of the Eternal. Still this was not his first journey to the mortal plane and would not likely be the last. With renewed resolve, the flyer shook the strangeness of the place away and prepared himself for the next step of his journey, to seek out the caller from the mass of beings below.

With the same expression as a dog testing for a scent, he closed his eyes against the chilly breeze, and swept his now blind gaze across the vista, feeling for his destination, rather than straining wind dried eyes further. Earthward the traveler stretched his thoughts, towards the tiny sets of lights, packaged boxes of warmth and life. Once settled in to this other "sense," he began to move, spurring himself into flight once again. The winged searcher was blind to the homes now, feeling instead for the souls within. To such senses the landscape beneath was a chaotic mess, far different from the neatly ordered rows of glowing windows evenly spaced apart; a picture of quiet suburbia laid out with such care. From house to house he sought, but there was no rank or file to the brightness of those who lived within. Houses would resonate with sweetness and sourness alike, with no reason or rhyme differentiating the line where good neighbors ended and bad neighbors began.

The jumble of lives was disconcerting for the flyer, who in distaste at what he sensed, shivered as he had not for the cold winds. In a particular house below the twinges of self recrimination were a bitter pill, even in sleep the child within relived the days disappointments and injuries endlessly, while softly muttering "Oh hamburgers," into a worn pillow. His nature urged him to stop and calm the mind that wept even when eyes were sealed and dried, but Duty called ever forward.

It was sometimes exhausting to imagine how even in their sleep humanity carried on dreaming their emotions away, broadcasting a deafening stream of mixed feelings heavenward. Hellward too, he supposed. The stream of self that was the massed aura that clung to a dense population of souls was strong in any town and worse over the cities. Nothing compared to this place, though, this town, nestled so quaintly out of the way in the secluded Rockies. Here the lives were always unnaturally rich with feeling and emotion and subtle under weavings of something more subtle. Here one could feel the lingering touch of Immortals, a stain on the tapestry of the lives below. It was only logical if one considered the towns past; this place had sat at the heart of so much conflict surely it would carry the echoes with it on even the most peaceful nights, and in the deepest sleep.

Suddenly he banked to the right, breaking his peaceful glide, careful not to even pass through the air directly above one particular house. Only after he'd acted on instinct did he feel out to the dwelling, sensing that sleeping within, angry and red, a swollen tick of a soul lay, gorged on the misery of others, unable to find inner peace even in rest. For a moment the stench was so thick he thought he'd passed over a Fallen, or a demon, or one of the other countless beings who existed beyond mortal knowledge, things that hungered solely to inflict misery. The thought was dismissed as quickly as it was summoned. The taste was miserable yes, and left him with the need to gag, but it was not completely devoid of all humanity. Also there was a familiarity to the soul, reminding him of the last time he'd visited this mountain range. A soul like that you couldn't forget, even though he had been in human form then, nearly blind to the flavor of souls when he last met that youth. Still something of the taste and smell of the rancid boy's nature had seeped through even then, and it seemed time had only deepened the rot.

"Eric," Gregory spat with distaste, trying to clear his mouth. A few quick wing beats carried him beyond, but still he temporarily stopped testing the waves of emotion below. He was certain he could afford to halt the search; the one he sought had senses far too finely tuned to peacefully live within a mile of the Cartman boy.

While he tried to out-fly the sensation, he pondered the strangeness of the unforgettable little town and the diverse children he'd met there. Hard to believe he'd survived two months among those mortals. Still there'd been pleasant moments, mortality was an intense thing for all its brevity and limitations, and from that extended time he carried a few good experiences. Unbidden the images of a raven haired girl, several other idealistic children, and an endearingly foul-mouthed heretical French boy flashed through his mind, unsettling his smooth flight. The ghost of a smile still on his lips he thought back on the more pleasant aspects of the craziness that had ensued the last time he'd been summoned here. Fancifully he toyed with the idea of delaying his journey long enough to seek out a few more familiar souls, and perhaps dredge up more fond memories.

Considering his normal duties, even handling something as extreme as preventing Hell on earth was a far happier and lighter time to reminisce on, and it surprised him how quickly he'd let the ever present light of the Eternal, and the opinions of his estranged fellow angels in the Host, drive the thought of the other children from his mind. Once the mess of Hell on earth had cleared up, and Satan had descended once again, he'd fled the intensity and sensations, retreating back to his real Duty. With the swiftness of thought he'd shed earthly friendships along with the mortal body he'd worn so briefly. Just as lightly as he'd left them behind, Heaven itself had washed its hands of this place, at least for the time, and so thankfully had Hell. Not that matters Christian had been the sum and total of the town's troubles, the dead had walked here once he'd been told, and stranger things since had occurred. He occasionally asked after the place when he was among the Host. The town was a beacon to strange beings alien, mortal, and immortal alike and a barometer of matters mundane and ecclestiacal. It was a powder keg, a place where the Balance was so far upset, that the slightest spark could blow everything out of proportion. Why this town had been chosen for such a fate, he wasn't sure, but as to why it was the way it was…the blame rested squarely on the shoulders of the one who summoned him.

His thoughts tracking back to the reason for his visit, the flyer let out a soft sigh. The released breath was caught up in the wind twisting through his golden curls, and carried smoothly back amongst the silver feathers streaming behind. In a cautious, testing manner he reopened his senses to a far more subdued stream of emotional turmoil. Below the landscape had brightened, though the soulscape had dimmed, as his flight had carried him beyond the suburbia to the downtown. Here in the heart of commerce and industry few souls lived, and those that were present now, were mostly leaving bars, their minds drowning in alcohol, and hearts submerged in a stupor that dulled their feelings of contentment or remorse. Quickly moving past the area, still sure that the call originated somewhere ahead, he hit the outskirts of town, where those who could afford no other place lived, their lives so crushed by day to day necessity, that by this time of the day their hearts were feeble, strained, and tired things.

Of course even in the wave of misery and self-pity a few resilient souls stood out, and he felt another familiar boy's mind whisk by beneath. This one was well known to the angel, and indeed to almost everyone in Heaven and Hell. Known as Kenny among the mortals, though he was a second Keanu Reeves in the celestial realm, the divine hero tossed in his sleep restlessly. Perhaps he was plagued subconsciously by the forces that swept so wildly across the celestial plain. Or perhaps his dreams were haunted by some other private misery only God or better yet Death might know. A confused and conflicted life for that one, the flyer mused pityingly. The thread of the poor boy's being had been interwoven into the designs of Heaven and Hell so often he should have left sanity far behind. Just the young man's bad luck that one of the great neutral spirits had taken interest in the madness of this place. With one swift cut on birth, Death had wielded a ghostly sickle in shadowy mimicry of the surgeon's scalpel that fateful day. In one slice, boy was severed from the bindings of mortality as surely as he had been from his mother moments before.

The stigmata of immortality had followed Kenny from infant to boy then young man, forever making him outcast and different from his fellows. What might drive the youth to keep trying to fit in against such odds, the angel pondered, especially with Death as an indifferent master? The flyer knew all too well the discomfort of the black winged soul collector's presence; he'd met him too often in the course of his own Duties. Still if Death wished a piece in this game, it wasn't in the nature of an angel to over ponder such things. Besides if anyone on this plane didn't need the services of this particular angel, it was one who could shrug off death as lightly as cobwebs. The angel moved on with a final sympathetic thought towards Kenny, the penultimate sacrificial pawn. Perhaps the ghost of the sympathy was felt, for if anyone might be sensitive to celestial presences it'd be that boy, and the tossing sleeper calmed, as the shadow of silvered wings passed over his barren room.

At last beyond the edge of town and into the hills and scattered dwellings surrounding it, the flyer found the source of the call. The building might have a solitary window, and only the faintest of light might peek through the shroud of trees around it, but the one within was, to divine senses, glowing like a tiny sun. He could feel the warmth of it as he neared, the sensation filling him in ways no earthly fire could. Futilely the cold wind tried to cut through his simple woven clothes, its touch unfelt by divine flesh, as he hastened his flight into a sweeping dive towards his destination. At the focus of his gaze a radio station antenna rose from the building, a skeletal finger of ice and iron, beckoning downward.

With one last tired flap, he straightened out weary wings and glided past the antenna down towards the shoveled sidewalk, not noticing how the surface glistened treacherously in the weak light. At the end of his journey at last, his tired senses gave way to an oversight as he misjudged the speed of his descent, and the earth rose too quickly in welcome. With a bone jarring crunch he landed. His motion continued forward into a stumble that turned into a slide and then a crash across slick black ice into a piled snow bank. A grimace plastered his face as he attempted to disentangle wings from limbs to stand, while muttering to himself, "Brimstone and Ashes! Gregory, you know how to make an entrance don't you. That one would have made Michelangelo consider painting us as clowns on the chapel ceiling." Unbidden the angelic youth quoted an old flying teacher's lesson, "Angels are doves, grace and poise, to descend on a spot, not albatrosses, to crash and slide, to flap and flop!"

Behind him a soft chuckle laced out, full of sympathy and amusement both, as from the doorway a voice spoke, "I don't think I ever heard them use that one, and here I thought I was versed in all the Proverbs. Must be one they only use among you flyers."

A flash of crimson quickly crossing his face, the angel Gregory realized the entire incident had been watched. Of course, he belatedly contemplated; the one who called him would have certainly sensed his arrival, probably before Gregory had even reached the city limits. With a studied attempt to rectify his just lamented lack of poise, Gregory turned to address the speaker, attempting to end the ungainly turning with the faintest of courtly bows, an action that was hampered by wings now heavy with dampness. The combination of motions and counter balancing actions served only to unsettle him further, and his sandals flew out beneath him, gripping the ice poorly. The bow ended in a headfirst tumble that dispelled the shreds of dignity he'd tried to summon up.

The speaker took sympathy and crossed the sidewalk to him, surely and steadily walking across the ice, even though he moved on feet equally ill equipped. A tint of envy darkened Gregory's eyes for the ease with which the other traversed the distance. Of course, his mind rationalized, after walking on liquid water, the frozen variety was probably fairly easy for the approaching man to maneuver on. With only a minimum of fuss, and a few quick motions, the speaker steadied Gregory, and once sure of the angel's balance, stepped away allowing room for wings to be folded.

Summoning up dignity yet again, Gregory addressed the source of the towns near two decades of unrest and madness. The man whose very presence tipped the scales of Balance so far that anything and everything could and did happen in South Park. "You called for an angel, My Prince of Peace?"

With a sigh that spoke volumes on his opinion of that mode of address, Jesus matched Gregory's dignity with a look of combined frank directness and humility that he'd trademarked against ancient Kings and Emperors over two millennia ago, "I'm glad you decided to come Gregory, though seeing as you were nice enough to answer my request I think we can skip this business of titles. Especially since, Angelos Custos Protego ex ego Vulnero, is a bit of a mouthful for me to call you by." Chuckling at the absurdity, Jesus continued, "Besides that, no one around here uses Lamb of God, or Everlasting Father, or any of the other countless titles save the one priest in these parts. I find the familiarity part of this places charm, and the long winded names part of Father Maxi'ss lack of charm. All things considered, I figure if anyone has earned the right of me to not use that form of address it'd be one of your kin."

For the second time that night, a flush marred the near perfect features, as Gregory responded, some hint of shame and his earlier dark thoughts on the Pearly Gates sneaking into his voice:

"No one calls us that up there, it's mostly the Half Wings, or Vulnerable Ones, if they have to talk to us at all My Lord. Sorry I mean your lordship, er…sir…er…J-Jesus."

"The Vulnerable Ones? I'd have thought they'd just call you all Guardian Angels like the real ones. I wouldn't have thought the Host could have found the time or creativity to think up new nicknames with all the singing and praising and ordering of the Universe to be done. Or is it something the lesser angels use…" Jesus paused a moment waiting for a sign of assent from Gregory. The silence was confirmation enough, and he continued. "If so, I wouldn't let it bother you, their comprehension of anything beyond the divine and their place in the games of Thrones and Dominions is laughably dim. If they understood what your kind had to deal with, Gregory, believe me they'd be more respectful. Still that would require thought and empathy…and neither part of their nature. Be thankful such is part of yours. You know how the Shining City is," the statement was greeted with an irritated nod from Gregory, and Jesus noted the reaction with a satisfied smile.

"Things never progress there," Jesus continued, "it took them a thousand years to realize that the days of the New Testament would be different from the days of floods, salt pillars, and brimstone. It's only natural for one like you to feel out of place there. Even with the Mormon restrictions gone, and the influx of new people, I guess that place is always going to resist change," Jesus finished sadly.

"Is that why you stay down here, even with the risk to the Balance?" Gregory queried, before the audacity of his question struck him, and he dropped his head. Quickly he stumbled over an attempt to mitigate his rude query, "Not that I'm q-q-uestioning your decisions, my lo—Jesus. It's just that well…you being here does sort of…change the place...a little," he finished lamely, speaking more to his sandals than the savior.

With a grimace Jesus finished for the angel, "And that change is not always for the good you'd imply if you weren't so well mannered. I suppose Hell hasn't tried to surface anywhere but here in the past few hundred years, let alone the rest of the mess this place goes through." Jesus admitted this with chagrin while pondering his response.

The question of his presence here was a difficult one, and the savior himself had considered it often, wondering what instinct guided him to this time and place. Still he was more than willing to try and answer the question, the boldness and initiative, were part and parcel of the reason he'd commissioned this new breed of angel and mortal soul, after his ascension. He'd relied heavily on the Vulnerable Ones, a fitting nickname if chosen for all the wrong reasons. They were a useful aide compared to the robotic and rule-bound Host, primarily for their willingness to change and feel, though also for their ability to move within both worlds. This lad in particular had been of much use over the centuries, most recently in his help with the messiness of Satan's last attempt to unleash Hell on earth during that American-Canadian War a decade prior.

"I suppose," Jesus began slowly searching for the appropriate words, "you have to understand that as long as there are scions, if one of us is on the earth, myself or the son of Satan, wherever we go there's going to be unrest. It'd be even worse if both of us are in the same general area. At least if I stay in one place, the rest of the world is kept relatively peaceful. Besides, it's too late for me to leave and expect this place to snap back to normal; surely you've felt the lives down there."

Jesus again waited for a response, making sure Gregory's attention was fully on him. Hearing the implied question, Gregory raised his head and acknowledged the statement with a nod of ascent.

"My presence," Jesus continued, "has marred an entire generation of children born after I felt Damien's conception and descended. Demons, Host, Fallen, and Neutral spiritsalike, everyone's got their stakes on someone down in that town, and it's my fault for choosing to leave Heaven and come back among the mortals.

"Not that it just stops with me," Jesus's voice took on a lecturing tone now, "Things have been picking up pace since the second millennia's change, and I don't think we've seen the worst of it just yet. Hell's on the brink of a civil war between the demons and the Fallen. My Father's gone silent, as have the Thrones, Seraphim, and Cherubim. The Second Choir argues and dithers over what to do with Heaven and beyond, while the Arch-Angels are divided on the affairs of man. Gabriel just sits there waiting patiently, ears tuned out to anything but the absence of the Voice, while the other three disagree during a time of Peace, a thing unheard since the City was created. The one thing I'm sure of is, that the last thing any angel up there wants is the half-mortal, half-divine upstart scion coming back up to toss around Free Will and mortal impatience to make their indecision even worse. Heaven and Hell are boiling over, and I don't think I could just stand around up there watching it go down through cloudy mirrors. Perhaps more serious, I think the Fallen are enacting some desperate plan to keep a hold on Hell, and they've always been resourceful. Whatever that plan is it must surely involve Damien, and what involves him is most certainly a concern for me. "

Each use of Satan's spawns name sent a shiver of dismay down Gregory's spine, and the gloom and doom predictions were quickly casting a shadowy pall over his expressive face. Jesus decided to end that vein of thought with a lame joke, and some mild encouragement rather than continue haranguing the weary angel.

"Still don't you worry too much, I have plans too, and how could I not…remember who my father is. Grand designs run in the family."

A weak chuckle escaped Gregory, and Jesus realized it'd probably be best to move onto more practical matters, a busy hand was one with no time to worry. With one last look at the sleeping South Park below, Jesus turned and motioned to the door.

"Come inside, Gregory, we have much to talk about, and not all of its bad. There's a lot of good in that town, you should remember that from the last time. We just have to keep this place from falling apart. As you already know too well what befalls South Park for ill or good tends to get magnified and impact the rest of the world. With your help things might work out well for everyone, above and below. All it's going to take is a little ingenuity, a little hope, a little luck...and I suppose it's silly for me to have to point it out to an angel but…a little faith."